Just now going through my litter of stuff I got at the lost light diner last sat lolz but like I NEED a tutorial for that breakdown figure oml!! 😓 also tyms for the freebies!!
Hi!!!! I'm so happy you like my Breakdown !!! Here's a walkthrough of what I did to make him!
First off, some tools you will need: detail brush, exacto knife, 300 grit sandpaper, wire coat hanger, wire cutters, worbla, Decepticon decal sticker, dremel tool, drill press, heat gun (or a hair dryer with a high setting), Tamiya Primer (not negotiable!), Liquitex gloss and/or matte depending on how you want yours to look. I used gloss on his whole body and matte on the darker parts (hands, shoulders) minus his windows.
Fair warning, I did a lot of trial and error and unsafe crafting practices, please be safe and don't inhale plastic powder or metal shards.
Note: This does not have to be done step by step. I've found that if I do something step by step, it'll never get done. So while yes, this is the order that you need to do everything, you will see in the photos I have 100% completed certain parts and haven't even started other parts.
The Blokees you will need:
What you need from each of them:
Sunstreaker - His chest, his back
Death Tracker - His round shoulder covers, his legs and feet. I went with his feet specifically because it's taller than other Blokees feet and it has the knees
Cogged Orion - His faceplate, his skeleton. The skeleton is non-negotiable. The newer Blokees have a wider range of motion and the neck peg is crucial to make sure his chin clears the top of his chest.
Any four of these can donate their joints, belt, upper arms/legs and hands.
For the tires I found these on ebay: 1/24 Scale: 17-inch “Cragar SS” model car wheels/tires. Resin; 3D
Once you have all the parts, you must sand!
Sand the logo off Sunstreaker's chest, sand the red bars off the Death Tracker's round shoulder bits. Sand Slag's coin off. Sand that weird bit off the back of the Death Tracker's feet. Paint likes to get caught on tiny ridges like that and it helps makes the paint job smoother. The tires might have ridges from the 3D printing, sand that off too!
Here is where it is going to start to get difficult. Using your wire cutters (mine are made for jewelry) you are going to eyeball the angle on Breakdown's rounded shoulder bit. It does not fully cover his upper arm. I used the round disk on the shoulder as point of reference and cut around it. On the back side, cut it straight and sand down the groove.
In this picture I still hadn't decided if I liked using clay to fill in the ridges on the Death Tracker's leg. I didn't and ultimately cut down a very small piece of worbla and used that instead. I cut it down to the point where it could almost fit, heated it up with a heat gun and forced it to fit in the gap. Work quickly, the worbla will bind to the plastic and once it's on, it's on. However, if you have metal tweezers, you can hold it over the heat and then apply it to the worbla.
I also used a drill press to make the tiny indents on his knees. While you're at the drill press, drill the holes in his feet for the tires. Make sure to have it so the tires are farther back rather than center. IMPORTANT: the Death Seeker is designed to have the nubs facing outward, you need to have those on the inside of his legs.
This part you may need another person to help. Assemble the upper arm with the round shoulder piece. In order to make sure he can still have a full range of motion with his arms, you MUST drill the holes at an angle. You won't notice they aren't perfectly straight when posing him. The mark is going to be somewhere on the most curvy part, match it to the other shoulder as best you can but don't worry if it's not perfect. I needed one person to hold the shoulder piece with both hands while I pulled the lever down on the drill press as the plastic would roll while drilling. It should look like this:
Finally, his head. This I procrastinated on for way too long.
So, basically. Blokees faceplates are designed to fit helms. I went with Cogged Orion because he has a chin and relatively squarish optics. His faceplate does not fit inside Slag's helm. You will need the fine grit sand paper, the exacto knife and tweezers. Little by little, shave his forehead down and cut where the coin is going to be. Check often and DO NOT trim anything else. The pieces are small and fiddly, the tweezers help move the faceplate when you have it in the helm. Force it up. You do NOT need to shave the front of his faceplate in any capacity. You will need to shave the inside of the front half of the helm, it will bump. ("Where is it bumping? Where is it bumping?" I muttered to myself as I fiddled with tiny plastic) Once you get his faceplate where it needs to be, NOW you can start trimming the insides. ("You can always cut down, but never add back, once it's off it's off" old family saying.) The curved part of his eyes where it meet the faceplate will have to be cut and shaved down. Be careful! Do not make it too thin this is where the neck peg goes. On the back half of the helm there is an old hole for Slag's eyes to slot into. Fill that with worbla or air dry clay or something. Orion's eye peg is too long, snip it off. There's other little bits on the inside to snip off but that's up to personal preference.
Once all of that is done: time to prime! Priming is very important and can not be skipped. I used to think, "I don't want to it'll be fine." (It was not.) Priming helps bind the paint to plastic and allows you to get that clean brush stroke. Use paint brushes or other thin sticks to easily prime/paint pieces with holes in them. He'll be looking like this:
Now it's time to paint! These are all the colors I used. Country Grey for his whole body, Pewter Grey for his rims. Do not use black! Pavement is my go to color if I need black. You will need to layer the paint. Country Grey will look like nothing on the first layer but by the 3rd it's starting to look like something.
For me personally, I mistook that dark line on Breakdown's chest as a purple line and decided to make it my thing. You don't have to do that if you don't want to. Another thing, his tires. I've made it the hill I die on to make sure his tires have his name in Cybertronian. Using the button I made as a reference (available in my shop now!) I painted his tires. I used a gloss on the tire part and a matte liquitex on the hubcaps/breakpads. Use gorilla glue to attach everything. WORK QUICKLY. It will dry very fast and you must be ready for it. If there's any mistakes, chips or whatnot, just touch it up and regloss.
He's going to start looking like this! I eyeballed the stripes. When painting, pick a direction and stick with it. Work WITH the plastic shape, not against it. I played around with his thigh details but it didn't look right so I took those off. Accept that fact you are going to have to constantly touch up little tiny bits to get that clean finish and don't be afraid of it.
My most important tip, and people will disagree with me: paint the parts no one will see. Why? Because people will be able to see it. My first Blokees I ever did was a Pink Ratchet and I didn't paint certain parts thinking, "Once it's assembled you won't see that part!" Guess what :3 I had to pry him apart and redo that, and any damage I caused from prying him apart
Pink Ratchet! (and surprise guest)
You may have noticed that wire sticking out of his arm. Here's the part that drove me bananas. Cut a piece of wire down to size, leave some length. Using the dremel tool, sand the wire down so the end isn't pinched. Now, figure out how you want the tires to sit on his shoulders. Put the wire through the hole you drilled, leave a small gap where it sticks out just enough to touch the hole in the hubcap. Put the tire on a flat surface. Get the gorilla glue and FILL the hole. Holding the arm with the wire in it, find your angle without touching the plastic to the glue. Sit there for a couple of hours. You MUST watch this wire until the glue dries. You will know when it is dry, it'll turn white. Once it starts to get tacky, you can slide the wire out of the arm and it can stand on its own. DO NOT leave unattended. You have to babysit this wire, it's still maneuverable so if you mess up, you can fix it.
Once the glue is dry, get that heat gun and an exacto knife. Be careful! Heat up the knife and cut away any excess glue that leaked over the edge of the hole. You must do this as any left over glue will prevent the tire from getting close enough to the shoulder.
With a marker, mark where the wire meets the ball joint gap in the shoulder. Be careful here! Cut the wire down bit by bit. Use the dremel tool to sand the wire down. Using one of your spare Blokees, check to make sure the wire isn't bumping into the ball joint. The wire will basically look like a stump once it's ready.
Use Gorilla Glue on the wire and stick it into the hole! Be quick about it! Use a q-tip to wipe away excess glue in the joint hole. Personally I wanted to make sure his tires were all facing the same way so it took me awhile. Do the same thing with his feet.
Why do all this? Peace of mind. The wire and glue will help protect against any falls. If you drop him, the tires are less likely to crack off.
For his head. It looked fine without gorilla gluing everything into place. But I wanted to make sure when I move his head it looked good. I poured some glue in there and waited. However when I put his head on the body, it went lower than it did before? I have no idea what happened or how I fixed it. But his chin was digging into his chest. I put my thumbnail under his chin and finger on the top of his head and simultaneous pulled up while pushing down. Idk how that fixed it, but it did. His head and neck have a full range of motion.
Once everything is painted, glossed and glued, start putting him together! Be gentle with him. Blokees snap into place, do not force anything. I had to make him a brand new foot because I snapped the joint in half. If you do damage or chip anything, you can always touch it up once he's assembled!
When posing him, I recommend holding it where the joint is and gently turning it. May sound weird but hold him close to you mouth and breath on him, the heat will loosen up the plastic a little bit.
That's our guy! He's a very time consuming project, but very rewarding once you're done! And, he held up great at the café!
Thank you so much for asking! He's my pride and joy and I've so happy with how he turned out I honestly wouldn't change anything! And I'm glad you like the freebies! I was working on my merch shop while also working on Breakdown at the same time, so they're all kinda tied together for me! I'll have even more in the shop soon! Rn I'm trying to work on a KOBD/Breakbee fic and then I'm back to drawing!
